8.01 "New Order Part 1" Episode Guide

Contents

Précis

Daniel and Dr. Weir face tough negotiations with Yu, Amaterasu, and Camulus, who face annihilation by Ba'al and want the superweapon that destroyed Anubis. Carter and Teal'c travel to Hala to seek the Asgard's help in reviving O'Neill. They find Thor just as the Replicators he's guarding escape, beaming Carter aboard their ship. A vengeful, betrayed Fifth tortures Carter.

SciFi.com Official Summary

Having had the knowledge of the Ancients downloaded into his head a second time (in the Season Seven finale), Colonel Jack O'Neill successfully modified a Goa'uld cargo ship to fly faster than any known vessel and was able to activate the throne chair in the Ancient outpost in Antarctica—thereby emitting an energy beam that obliterated the Goa'uld System Lord Anubis and his attack force, saving Earth. Then, with his mind overwritten with more Ancient knowledge that his human brain and body can handle for long, O'Neill placed himself in stasis at the outpost.

While Dr. Daniel Jackson, Major Samantha Carter and Teal'c—his once-bald pate now sprouting close-cropped hair—are eager to go the outpost and find a way to revive O'Neill. But Stargate Command's new leader Dr. Elizabeth Weir, can't allow it on the grounds that it would violate the international Antarctic Treaty that prohibits the establishment of a military base or the testing of any weapons at the site. All normal Stargate activity has been suspended until all the involved world governments can agree on control of the Antarctic site.

SG-1 still has hope that its offworld allies, the Asgard, can restore O'Neill by reviving him with the Ancient knowledge erased, as they did once before. But the Asgard have not responded to communication attempts in some time. Carter suggests they use the modified Goa'uld cargo vessel to fly to the abandoned Asgard homeworld, Hala, in the Othala galaxy. It was on this planet that SG-1 trapped the fatally swarming, insectlike machine race the Replicators, who have now achieved human form, in a time-dilation field, thus saving the Asgard and countless galaxies. But the field is due to dissipate and Carter surmises that the Asgard must be monitoring the situation. If SG-1 can get to Hala, they can contact the Asgard personally.

Weir refuses to approve the mission, however, since the modified cargo ship is the only such advanced piece of technology Earth has left, now that the weapon at Antarctica is dormant and no one but O'Neill knows how to reactivate it—if it even can be. But Carter pressures Weir to let her and Teal'c go by subtly refusing to work on the Ancient technology if Weir doesn't capitulate. Daniel stays behind as the only remaining expert in Ancient technology and on the Goa'uld, who may yet return to threaten Earth now that they no longer fear Anubis. He is also O'Neill's only hope if Teal'c and Carter do not return.

As Carter and Teal'c fly through hyperspace to Hala, SGC receives an offworld message from a Goa'uld—System Lord Camulus, Celtic God of War. He wants to arrange a meeting between SGC and a contingent of himself and System Lords Yu and Amaterasu—negotiate a treaty with Earth! Though Weir and Daniel suspect the Goa'uld only want to get their hands on the ultimate weapon that defeated Anubis, arrangements are made for the delegates to gate to SGC.

At the location where Hala should be, Teal'c and Carter are being pulled into a black hole. They are about to be sucked in when they and several of their weapon crates are suddenly beamed onto the bridge of the ship of the Supreme Commander of the Asgard fleet: Thor. Their old friend explains he couldn't receive SGC's messages because the time-space distortions caused by the black hole have been interfering with his ship's long-range communications. He further explains that Hala is gone and the black hole is there because the Asgard anticipated that the time-dilation field holding the Replicators would fail in two Earth years. In response, the Asgard altered gravity to collapse Hala's sun and create the black hole to destroy the planet, which is even now in the process of breaking up. Thor will be happy to accompany Teal'c and Carter back to Earth and save O'Neill after he's sure the Replicators are destroyed.

But then Thor's monitors show that a block of the shape-shifting Replicators have somehow used the time-dilation device to break free of the planet and form into a ship—which is now actively pursuing Thor's vessel.

Back at SGC, the three Goa'uld system lords arrive. Their proposition: Have Earth use its devastating new weapon to stop System Lord Ba'al, who now controls Anubis' supersoldier army, the Kull. Otherwise, Ba'al will destroy all the other system lords and eventually conquer the galaxy. With O'Neill in stasis—and in danger of imminent death if revived with his Ancient knowledge intact—SGC has no idea how to make the weapon work. And they cannot let the Goa'uld even suspect this.

Meanwhile, the Replicators have begun to infest Thor's ship. As Teal'c and Carter try to destroy them, Carter is suddenly beamed away onto the Replicator vessel—now headed toward the planet Orilla, where the Asgard have been rebuilding their civilization. The Replicators gleaned this intel from Thor's ship's computers before Teal'c finished destroying the relatively small number aboard. On the Replicator ship, Carter, to her horror, finds Fifth, the most compassionate and emotionally advanced of the humanlike Replicators whom SG-1 left in the time-dilation field. Or he was the most compassionate: After Carter had promised to take him away with SG-1 in exchange for Fifth helping them lure his fellow Replicators into the field, O'Neill had strategically left him behind. Betrayed and furious, Fifth now tortures Carter by projecting nightmarish images into her mind until she is broken and whimpering.

Thor pursues the Replicator ship through hyperspace and is about to self-destruct his ship to take the Replicators down with him. But he's thwarted by a Replicator still on his ship and sabotaging the controls. The Replicator ship pulls out of range and approaches the new Asgard homeworld. As it does so, Asgard ships converge and destroy it—with Carter, apparently, aboard.

At SGC, the system lords, offended at Weir's (bluff) offer of using the weapon in exchange for all of Ba'al's territory after defeating him, storm away from the negotiating table to return to their war with Ba'al. But Daniel, deciphering their coded messages, learns they are really leaving because a Goa'uld ship is coming to attack Earth to test the Antarctic weapon's authenticity. It will be there with the hour.